> Folk Music > Songs > Floating Down the Tide / By the Deep River Side / The False Young Man

Floating Down the Tide / By the Deep River Side

[ Roud 1414 ; G/D 6:1155 ; Ballad Index CrSNB053 ; MusTrad DB19 ; Wiltshire 14 ; trad.]

Tom Willett sang The False Young Man in c. 1960 to Ken Stubbs. in 2013 on the two Willett Family anthologies A-Swinging Down the Lane and Adieu to Old England. Rod Stradling commented in the latter's booklet:

This appears to be a fragment of Floating Down the Tide (aka Camden Town etc). Tom’s words are very close to those in the version collected by Sharp from Mrs Tremlett in Bagborough, Somerset, in 1908. This ballad was noted several times in England: in Somerset, Oxfordshire, Suffolk and Dorset; in Scotland in Aberdeenshire; and in Ireland in Co Fermanagh.

The English texts locate the events as taking place in Camden, Brighton or Cambridge, while in Scotland it is set in Kilmarnock, Dumbarton or Marno (Marnock, Banffshire?). One English version gives the unfaithful lover as a farmer’s son, while the three complete Scots texts make him a collier; otherwise he is, as here, ‘a false young man’.

Mary Delaney sang In Charlestown There Lived a Lass on one of Jim Carroll's and Pat Mackenzie's recordings of Irish Travellers in England made in 1973-1985 that were published in 2003 on the Musical Traditions anthology From Puck to Appleby. The collectors commented in the accompanying booklet:

Otherwise known as Floating Down the Tide; The Collier Lad; Molly and William etc.; this ballad was taken down several times in England: in Somerset, Oxfordshire, Suffolk and Dorset, and in Scotland, in Aberdeenshire. As far as we could find, there has been only one version made available from Ireland, that sung by publican Annie Mackenzie of Boho, Co Fermanagh, although the collector, Sean Corcoran, says it was widely known in that area.

The English texts locate the events as taking place in Camden, Brighton or Cambridge, while in Scotland it is set in Kilmarnock, Dumbarton or Marno (Marnock, Banffshire?). A Canadian version places the location as Charlottetown, similar to Mary’s Charlestown. One English version gives the unfaithful lover as a farmer’s son, while the three complete Scots texts make him a collier; otherwise he is, as here, ‘a false young man’.

Mary’s text has similarities to the two version of the song Camden Town (Roud 564; Laws P18), recorded from English gypsies William Hughes and Nelson Ridley by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, particularly the verse that begins “Now I will not go home…”.

Elizabeth Stewart sang this song as In London Town on her 1992 Hightop Imagery cassette 'Atween You an' Me. She also sang it at the Edinburgh International Festival, a recording of which was included in 1995 on the Greentrax CD Folk Songs of North-East Scotland. Peter Hall commented in the album's notes:

There are numerous songs which tackle this all too common theme of women betrayed and there are nearly fifty such items in Volume 6 of the Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection. There are, however, none which end in precisely the same way with the betrayer himself laying down his life. The song was learned by Elizabeth from her aunt, Lucy Stewart, whose formidable repertoire contained many songs never before collected; a timely reminder that the tradition can never be totally captured even by the most assiduous searchers. The singing style is quite typical of the traveller's talent for extending and embroidering a very simple basic melody to give it a tragic majesty.

Andy Turner learned Floating Down the Tide from a Sharp MSS at the Library at Cecil Sharp House, collected on 27 December 1906 from Susan Williams (1832-1915) of Haselbury Plucknett, Somerset. He sang it as the 19 January 2013 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week.

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